I just got back to work today and managed to cancel a couple of meetings, so I finally have time to write a proper review (I hope). Thursday at Confederation Park in Ottawa featured: the Trevor Findlay Band, Coco Montoya, Wide Mouth Mason, and Johnny Winter.
Briefly, the Trevor Findlay Band deserves more recognition—hot guitar player, good vocals, tight band. Coco Montoya is an excellent guitarist and a great singer. He’s improved a lot since I last saw him in 1992 with Mayall. At the start of his set, he mentioned how excited he was about the Trevor Findlay Band and said, “I gotta get my ass in gear”—and he certainly did! It was a great set.
Wide Mouth Mason is a young band (everyone’s about 20). They performed a mixed bag—some blues, some not, and even covered Hendrix’s Castles Made of Sand. Lots of potential. Now, onto Johnny...
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Johnny Winter at Ottawa Blues Festival
I'm 43, and I've been a Johnny Winter fan since 1968. I've seen him 15 times over the years, and he’s always left me inspired to play better myself. There are few people in the world I truly admire, and Johnny Winter is my one and only hero. I'd go see him no matter what. But having said all that, this is the first time I’ve ever been bored at a Johnny Winter show.
Johnny came on stage around 10:15 and played until 11:30 p.m. He seemed to be walking normally and at a decent pace. Yes, the guy with the flashlight was there, but he’s always there. Johnny plugged in his own guitar, adjusted his own microphone—things I’ve heard he’s had trouble with recently—and as soon as he started noodling to warm up his fingers, he began rocking from side to side like a wind-up toy. He never stopped doing this.
He started with Hideaway, played at a slow tempo, and missed quite a few notes, even at this relaxed speed. I hoped it was just because he was warming up. He moved on to Sen-say-shun/Got My Mojo Working, and although he played a bit better, it was still slow and tentative. My buddy (also a guitar player) and I were trying to figure out if he was offbeat or if it was the bass player, Mark Epstein, who was at fault. We concluded that both were, at times. Most of Johnny’s solos sounded almost identical, as if they were memorized. His tone, always trebly, was especially abrasive on the bass strings. Rolling back the treble wouldn’t hurt.
The real test came with (She Likes to) Boogie Real Low. I was floored. I hadn’t heard Johnny’s familiar growl—“Yeah!”—and I never did. He mumbled his way through the lyrics, more talking than singing or shouting. His vocal timing was off, and the song was played at about three-quarters of the studio version’s speed. He tried playing his signature riff (listen to It Ain’t Your Business), which is repeated twice. He tried it three times in this song and couldn’t nail it. It even sounded like he forgot parts of the song, as he sang it three times and didn’t seem to know how to end it.
Next was Sick and Tired, and again, his vocals were painfully weak. He missed plenty of notes, and the band spent a lot of time on these boring vamps that went nowhere before eventually drifting back into the song.
Blackjack Game was equally tedious because of the repetitive vamping. His vocals were pitched too high, and the song dragged on for 15 minutes without going anywhere—once again, with lyrics repeated multiple times. By this point, many of the 500 or so people in front of me had left, which allowed me to move closer and take some pictures (I’ll post them once the film’s developed).
Finally, Johnny returned for an encore and performed The Sun Is Shining. For the first time that night, he sounded almost like the Johnny Winter I know and love. His slide work on the Firebird V was fantastic (almost flawless), though his vocals remained lifeless—no growl, no raspiness, just flat. He and the flashlight guy then left the stage to well-deserved applause.
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I have a few more observations for anyone still reading. He seems to be reaching a new audience—there were a lot of younger people in the crowd who had never seen him and were still blown away, so that’s great. He’s still got that amazing, wide vibrato. Physically, Johnny didn’t look any different to me than he did in 1992 (or on the Dylan tribute in '93), but his voice is very weak, and his guitar playing has suffered. There were flashes of the old Johnny in a couple of songs, but he couldn’t sustain any speed, and his playing wasn’t clean. He still has an excellent command of blues turnarounds and clearly still loves to play, but it’s not the same. He seems to have lost the coordination between his picking and fretting hands. The slide work is still impressive, but that involves different coordination.
Physically, he appears to be in slightly better shape than others have described, but if he’s on the mend, he has a long way to go in terms of his guitar playing. I went home the next morning and put on five Johnny Winter CDs (Johnny Winter, Still Alive and Well, White Hot and Blue, 3rd Degree, and Let Me In). I just lay there and enjoyed what he used to be.
Would I see him again? Until the day he can’t do it anymore, I’ll be there.
I reread this, and it sounds like I’m being harsh, but I’m not. I’m trying to give an honest account of what I saw and heard. I’ve seen him 15 times, so I have some perspective on what a Johnny Winter live show is all about. I have too much love and respect for him to do anything other than provide my best attempt at an objective review.
Mike Stefano
